It's been called The Arabian Nights' Entertainments, One Thousand and One Nights, etc., but the framework is generally the same: a Persian king discovers his wife is cheating, so, having determined that all women are unfaithful, he decides to marry a virgin every day and have her killed by the next. After a while the kingdom is running low on virgins, so the cunning Scheherazade volunteers to marry the king, and to keep her own head she tells him a new thrilling tale every night. He's so captivated by the stories that he doesn't realize it's a trick. So...Scheherazade is like the original Dan |